The Agency, Volume II

by Sylvan, Dianne

  "Mortaea Arbra," she said, half sobbing, grabbing her Ear. [Dispatch—SA-9, Sara Larson authorization 48994-1, I need someone who speaks Elvish, immediately.]

  Surprisingly it was Ness who replied. [What did you find, SA-9? Report.]

  [Rowan,] she said, controlling her tears by the edges of her fingertips, nothing more. [He wasn't in the explosion. They took him.]

  She heard Ness sit down hard. [Are you telling me he's alive?]

  [I don't know. He was when the bombs went off. They took him away.]

  [Who? Who was it, Sara?] Ness's voice, even translated over the telepathic network and boosted to maximum, rose an octave.

  [Mortaea Arbra,] Sara repeated.

  Silence.

  [Ness? What is it? What does it mean?]

  When Ness replied, her voice was rough, maybe even with tears. [It means Tree of Death.]

  Sara put her hands over her face, too many emotions fighting inside her for control of her reactions. [Tree of Death. That can only mean Clan Yew. And they knew him—one of them mentioned Kaeli by name. God, Ness…they killed an entire Clan for the chance to get back at him. We have to find them, he might still be alive, if…]

  But even as she thought the words, she heard the lie in them. It had been two months. They would have tortured Rowan, taken their revenge for the deaths of their Warriors and leader and for the Agency denying them custody of Elora…but they wouldn't have let him live, because if they had, he would have found a way to escape, or send a message home. He could speak telepathically to Jason over a hundred miles in the right conditions. There was no way Clan Yew would allow that to happen.

  [Get back to Austin as soon as you can,] Ness instructed. [I'm doubling security around the base. We'll have a full debriefing when you arrive.]

  [Why the security?]

  She was forcing herself to think and act as Director, not as Ness, right now, and Sara could appreciate her calm. [We have to assume that if they tortured him they at least attempted to get information about the SA. After what happened last time we met them, we're probably right on top of their shit list. Now, all of you get back to the van and come home. Expect to show your badge twice as much when you arrive. And Sara…good work. I commend you.]

  There had been a time when Sara would have basked in that kind of praise; Ness wasn't given to elaborate compliments, and even a nod of approval from her was the equivalent of a speech with balloons.

  But ultimately it was a hollow victory, and instead of feeing triumphant, she felt empty, as if some part of her had secretly hoped that coming here would reveal it had all been a mistake and Rowan was there, wandering the ruins, waiting to be rescued. Perhaps it was better to have the truth, but death by incineration seemed infinitely kinder than death by torture by one's own people.

  She called the rest of the team back and directed them toward the van, unwilling to talk about it and unsure what she would say anyway. The only thing that kept running through her mind in vicious circles was the question:

  What were they going to tell Jason?

  Part Six

  When Sethen returned from the Temple that night, he found Kir out on the balcony staring at the forest, just as Sethen did every morning. His clear green eyes were troubled, his hands resting on the rail, and he had changed out of his uniform into a casual robe in a soothing pale blue-grey—chosen, perhaps, because Sethen loved the color blue, and their house's Spartan decorations were in various shades of that color.

  Sethen had fully intended to have it out with the Healer for spying on them, but one look at Kir's expression and those plans vanished into the darkening sky.

  Instead, Sethen came to stand beside him, and for a while neither spoke.

  After a while, though, Sethen knew he had to say something, just so it had been said and they could forget the whole thing. "You could have gotten in a lot of trouble today."

  Kir didn't look at him…wouldn't. "So could you, for letting me go."

  "It can't happen again."

  Kir's hands were white as they gripped the balcony rail. "What did she do?"

  "What? Who?"

  "Naia. The woman you…took in. What did she do that was so terrible?"

  Sethen leaned on his elbows, folding his hands. "I don't know exactly. Level three violations are a pernicious enough form of blasphemy that the Council doesn't usually tell us what they are."

  "You didn't even know? You…you hit her, you could have killed her. You scared her to death and then turned her over to the Temple, and you don't even know why?"

  "It's not our place—"

  "How can you live with yourself, doing what you do?"

  "I don't know," Sethen snapped. "You live with me, you tell me. You've known what I am all along and it's never bothered you before."

  "I'd never seen it before. I'd never seen you so heartless and cold. Hurting her was just…it was so easy for you. What if she's right? What if eventually they come for all of us? Will you make me bleed without a second thought?"

  "You think it's easy? I didn't ask for this, Kir. I had no choice. None of us have a choice, in case you hadn't noticed. The humans took our choices away."

  "No," Kir said. "The humans killed our families, but this Clan has taken our lives."

  "Stop." Sethen clamped down on his anger, as well as on the fear that arose at the indignation in Kir's voice. "You have to stop talking like this."

  "Report me." Sethen had never seen Kir so furious, and he took an involuntary step back to put some distance between himself and the Healer's energy. "Go ahead, Sethen. Tell them I have still have my own mind and let them torture it out of me. What difference does it make? If nothing I think and feel matters in this place, I might as well have died with the rest of my Clan."

  "Don't say that—"

  "Why not? Why does it matter to you?"

  "Because I love you," Sethen said, and turned away, shocked at his own words.

  There was a moment of silence before Kir said softly, "I'm not sure you're capable of love."

  The sentence hung in the air between them for a long time, but eventually the Healer spoke again, asking, "What will happen to her?"

  Sethen had to fight to bring words out instead of a sob, and he pushed his emotions down so hard that his voice was almost hoarse. "If…when…they find her guilty, they'll force her to undergo the purification rituals again, but this time without sedating her. When it's over they'll give her the chance to repent, and if she does, they'll wipe her memory again and let her return to the Clan. If not…she becomes one of the Silent."

  "What are the Silent?"

  "Outcasts. They're stripped of their Clan membership. Their voices are taken and then they're left in the forest for the Goddess to reclaim however She will. Anyone caught assisting an outcast suffers the same fate." Before Kir could ask, he added, "They use magic to take the voices away. They don't cut out tongues." When there was no response, he couldn't help but go on. "That's part of why we have border guards. Not just to protect us against humans, but to keep the Silent from trying to come back."

  Kir put his back to the balcony rail and slid down until he was sitting on the stone floor, his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he wept.

  Sethen watched him, his whole being hurting, and finally sank down beside him, unsure whether to reach out to him or not. He wouldn't be surprised if Kir never wanted to be touched by him again. Naia had been right—there was blood on his hands, and it never washed away.

  "There's nowhere else to go," Kir whispered. "We're all prisoners here."

  He wanted more than anything to pretend that Kir was wrong, but he couldn't. "Yes."

  "Even you."

  Sethen smiled without any mirth. "Especially me. I can't ever go back to simply being a border guard, knowing what I know." He leaned back, wondering if a single-story fall might kill him if he landed right. "I realized a month after I was promoted that what we do is wrong. But it was too late. Now everyone fears me, and the only frie
nd I have thinks I'm a monster."

  Kir raised his head quickly. "I don't think that."

  "Of course you do. And you're right."

  "You're not a monster, Sethen." Kir's expression changed, from grief-stricken to determined, and he lifted trembling hands and touched both sides of Sethen's face. "You're not a monster. And I didn't mean what I said before. None of this would hurt so much if I didn't love you, too."

  Sethen took the Healer into his arms, and Kir buried his face in Sethen's shoulder the way he did after waking from a nightmare. "What are we going to do?" Kir asked softly.

  "I don’t know. I'm so tired…I wonder how any of us can stand this life forever."

  "I don't think we can. Maybe that's how the Silent really come to be—something in us just won't take it anymore, and will take any escape it can."

  “Maybe.” Sethen leaned his head against Kir’s, letting his eyes drift shut. So tired…every day was harder and harder, and even having a lover to talk to hadn’t taken the weight from his soul…assuming he still had one. The Council might have taken that too, so that a being whose entire purpose was supposed to be healing and grace could make his own people bleed.

  The dusk deepened into true night, and they stayed out on the balcony for nearly an hour in silence until Kir straightened and said, “Come on. Let’s go inside and I’ll get dinner together, and you can wash up and change.”

  Sethen allowed himself to be pulled up to standing and led into the house, and though he obeyed Kir’s gentle orders to bathe and dress, to sit and eat, and to put out the lights after the night bell rang, he did so without really thinking, letting his body act of its own will while his mind sank into the mire of exhaustion and sadness. Kir must have sensed it, for he made no move toward intimacy, but wound his arms around Sethen protectively, stroking his hair and the back of his neck until he could finally sleep.

  *****

  Hours later, in the profound darkness of the night before time tilted toward morning, Kir woke with a start, sure he’d heard something.

  He lifted his head and looked around the bedchamber, but all was serene; the moon had long set, leaving starlight to illuminate the edges of things, and a light breeze came through the open window, carrying the rustle of leaves but little else.

  “Can you hear it?”

  Kir turned his head toward his lover, whose eyes were half-open but unfocused. The Healer touched his face lightly, soothingly. Sethen had talked in his sleep once or twice before, nothing that ever made sense; that must have been what had woken Kir. “Sleep, dear one,” he said. “You need your rest.”

  Sethen shifted onto his stomach, moving one arm up to the pillow and resting his head on the other. He was smiling just a little in his sleep, something Kir couldn’t remember him doing before. Kir envied him whatever he was dreaming about. His own thoughts were nothing to smile over.

  He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he had to do something. He had to find out if there was a way out of this place, if there was anywhere else they could go…there had to be other Clans still alive out there. Would the Council allow anyone to leave of their own free will? He doubted it…but he had to find out. He had to know just how much they had all given up for the safety promised to them…and if it was worth it.

  Kir had a sinking feeling that it wasn’t.

  “Listen,” Sethen murmured. “Listen…”

  Kir smiled to himself at the role reversal--usually it was Sethen comforting him in the night. “I don’t hear anything.”

  Sethen sighed, and it was unlike any other sound Kir had ever heard him make; it was a sigh of contentment, of peace. “I do.”

  He shifted positions again and settled back into sleep, allowing the faint light to pick out the edges of the strange scar on his wrist. Kir had asked, once, where such a mark could have come from, but of course Sethen didn’t remember. His uniform had long sleeves so it rarely ever showed, but sometimes Kir caught him rubbing it unconsciously while lost in thought or distressed. Just one more mystery, Kir supposed, in a place that was built on mysteries.

  He could only hope it was really mysteries...and not lies.

  Part Seven

  "I’m going to go kill myself a fuckload of Elves," Beck said, yanking a chair out from the conference table and flinging herself down in it. "Just tell me where to point my gun."

  Sara, at the other end of the table to Ness's right, leaned her forehead on her hand. "That's the problem. We have no idea where they are or how to find them."

  Beck rolled her eyes. "Come on, we've got the best technology in the freaking world at our fingertips, and Frog—" she waved her hand at him, and he looked up from his pile of notes, probably startled that she knew his name, "could practically beat Einstein at Trivial Pursuit, if not in a fist fight. Ness, what did we do the last time Rowan got kidnapped?"

  Ness sounded tired, as if she'd been mulling over the problem all day, which she probably had. "Frog will have to explain that one, SA-8."

  "Let's have it, then. And by the way, next time we have an Elf as an Agent we really ought to consider LoJacking him."

  Sara held back a grin in spite of the situation.

  Frog cleared his throat self-consciously; his promotion, and dating Sage, had done a lot for his confidence, but he was still far more comfortable in the lab than in the spotlight. "SA-7 had Sage recalibrate the Ear so that it ran off empathy rather than telepathy, allowing him to use SA-5's strongest psychic ability as a homing beacon of sorts."

  "Why can't we do that this time, then?"

  He shook his head. "It won't work on the deceased. We don't have the technology to transmit across the Veil. Plus, we have no idea what direction to search in, or how far away Clan Yew could be. Last time we at least knew they could only be a certain distance away in the timeframe involved. After we rescued Sedna's son they abandoned their old settlement and disappeared. They could be anywhere."

  "All right, then, what about you, Witch Girl?"

  Sara raised her eyebrows. "Meaning?"

  "You talked to the bomb site. Can't you go back and find a trail, track them?"

  "No." Sara tucked a few strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail back behind her ear. "The enchantment they put on the bombs erased their trail."

  "We've got all the Elven Agents in the country scouring all their contacts for any information about the whereabouts of Clan Yew," Ness said. "All we can really do is wait. I've got the Eyes searching too, as far out as their range can extend, and every branch with an Ear and Eye network is doing the same within the limits of their own territories. But the Clans cloak their villages very well—it takes even the slavers years to track one down to attack."

  "There is…" Frog began, then bit the inside of his lip, unsure; Ness gave him an encouraging nod, and he started again. "There is one other thing that we might try."

  All eyes fixed on him, and he looked even more uncomfortable. "Well. Ness, you remember how Agent 7 was complaining about static on his Ear? At first we attributed it to the last major upgrade, but it kept happening, so I had one of the techs pull the signal output records for the last eighteen months, and we discovered something a little weird."

  Sara had absolutely no idea where he could be going with this, but Ness told him to continue.

  "The static wasn't coming from the network, it was coming from the Agent. SA-7's energy signature is of course the most recognizable in the branch, and it normally functions at such a high level that it pegs off the charts on the system, but if we looked above the upper limit we saw that his energy was…erratic. Not seriously, not even noticeably, except in the form of periodic static on the Ear."

  "What are you getting at, Frog?" Ness asked, sounding completely at a loss.

  "He hasn't brought it up recently, but checking the signal log, the incidents have been more frequent in the last year. I checked the dates, and the increase coincides perfectly with his and Rowan's handfasting."

  Frog paused, as if wa
iting for them all to see his point, but Sara guessed their faces didn't show any comprehension, because he sighed and went on. "What I'm saying is, basically, he's been reporting static since shortly before he and Rowan got together. When they had the commitment ceremony the static got worse. There was an energetic link between the two of them all along, but it was strengthened by the handfasting. Solidified. If you think about it, a wedding is basically like any other kind of ritual—it's symbolic, but it also invokes something. Two lives being blended together."

  "So the handfasting did what it was supposed to do," Sara mused. "It merged their lives until they choose to be parted."